Open (Play)house: La Jolla theater hosting residency roundtable

Albert Park , Carolyn Henderson and Elise Kim Prosser in last summer's San Diego Asian American Repertory Theatre production of "BFE." SDAART is the current resident company at La Jolla Playhouse.
— Chandra McColgan

Albert Park , Carolyn Henderson and Elise Kim Prosser in last summer's San Diego Asian American Repertory Theatre production of "BFE." SDAART is the current resident company at La Jolla Playhouse.
/ Chandra McColgan

It's hard to create theater without an actual theater to create in, which is a key reason La Jolla Playhouse's Resident Theatre Program has proved such a plum for local companies.

The annual residency provides one San Diego County-based theater with rehearsal and performance space at the Playhouse, one of the country's most renowned regional theaters. The resident company also receives administrative support.

As the program (which is intended for theaters without permanent homes of their own) heads into its fourth year, the Playhouse is now on the lookout for its next resident company. To help spread the word, the La Jolla theater is hosting a roundtable on Tuesday, Dec. 21; local companies that are interested in the residency are invited to come by the voluntary event and find out more about how the process works.

The roundtable begins at 5:30 p.m. For more details or to RSVP, contact the Playhouse's Marike Fitzgerald at mfitzgerald@ljp.org. The application deadine for the 2011-12 residency is Jan. 24.

The Playhouse's current resident company, by the way, is the San Diego Asian American Repertory Theatre, which staged the Julia Cho play "BFE" at the Playhouse last summer. SDAART had said it would stage a short-play festival in May 2011 as its second residency production, but there's been no further word from the company since "BFE" closed.